Craig Nolan

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is… Tasman Resources. The South Australian mineral explorer has a series of impressive targets to follow up with a drilling program. Bridge SaaS received some love from a substantial shareholder keen to increase its stake in the firm, while other movers and shakers this week were New Frontier Minerals and Axel REE.

Aurumin has kicked off its latest 1600m drill program and will launch into its prospective Plum Pudding deposit where a mouth-watering 18m drill hit graded 25.8g/t gold at its Central Sandstone project about 520km northeast of Perth. The company also plans to target extensional and infill drilling at its Shillington deposit and aims to crash through the million-ounce milestone at the project shortly.

Reach Resources has anointed global mining technical services firm Mining Plus to independently review the expansion potential of its Murchison South gold project in WA and to prioritise targets for a new-year drilling campaign. It follows Reach’s own review that identified substantial potential and highlighted immediate drilling opportunities at the project, with plans now made for a 12-hole RC drill program at the site.

With the critical minerals boom in full swing Lycaon Resources is eagerly awaiting a suite of niobium assay results from a drill campaign at its Stansmore niobium-rare earths project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region. The company is looking to identify anomalous pathfinder and trace elements that will demonstrate potential for its targeted 500m diameter magnetic intrusive feature to host critical metals mineralisation.

Horizon Minerals has dispatched its first load of gold-bearing ore from the company’s Boorara operation near Kalgoorlie for processing at the nearby Paddington mill, as part of its recently revealed tie-in with Hamptons Transport. The company says 54,380 tonnes of ore has been hauled to the mill and is expected to result in an estimated $5.78 million minus processing costs.

Terrain Minerals has wheeled in an RC drill rig to probe the potential bedrock source of gold discovered in the supergene zone during air core drilling at its Wildflower gold project in WA’s Mid West region. The 16-hole drill program is a follow up to the successful air core program that unveiled a potential new gold discovery, returning 9m grading 1.17 grams per tonne gold.

Aurumin is set to unleash the drill-bit again to try to replicate a previous stellar 18m drill hit grading 25.8g/t gold at its Central Sandstone project in WA about 520km northeast of Perth. The company plans to target extensional and infill drilling at its Shillington and Plum Pudding deposits and is hoping to breach the million-ounce milestone at the project soon.

Terrain Minerals has kicked-off a ground-based EM survey to better define four very curious, potentially nickel-copper conductors at its Lort River project that sits in the same geological belt as IGO’s huge nickel-copper discovery in the renowned Albany-Fraser Belt. Terrain believes a geophysical “eye” feature identified at Lort River shares strong similarities with IGO’s “eye” that was identified prior to its discovery of the large producing Nova-Bollinger operation in the region in 2012.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Aldoro Resources. The Namibian explorer stacked on 201% after jagging continuous niobium from a trench chip-sampling program at its Kameelburg project. Other runners include Macro Metals which secured $4 million from an earthmoving company that joined its share register and began drilling for manganese in WA’s Pilbara region, while other movers and shakers this week were Invion and Petratherm.

Reach Resources has uncovered more thick rare earth hits at its 100 per cent-owned Wabli Creek project in WA’s Gascoyne region, hitting an impressive 76m grading 1677 parts per million total rare earth oxides. Assays from the remaining 22 drill-holes returned consistent zones of the valuable magnet rare earth oxides, returning up to 1809ppm with the potential for additional high-grade zones.

Octava Minerals has spotted visible signs of the critical mineral, antimony, in drill holes at the company’s Yallalong project that sits in the Mid West region of WA, with assays due early next year. Drilling is nearly complete at the company’s Discovery prospect with the rig then set to move to its Central antimony prospect for a maiden nine-hole program.

Larvotto Resources has scored $30 million from new and existing investors, ensuring it is well-funded to intensify exploration of its Hillgrove antimony-gold operation near Armidale in NSW. The placement will see 57.7 million shares issued at 52c apiece and follows on from the company recently banking a total of $14.2m from an offtake pre-payment and option conversions.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … PhosCo. The phosphate explorer was awarded a critical exploration permit and signed an important agreement to collaborate on developing Tunisia’s northern phosphate hub. Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals ran hard after being given the green-light for its phase-three drug trials, while other movers and shakers this week were AVJennings and Errawarra Resources.

ChemX Materials has locked-in an agreement to provide private firm Vytas with high-purity assay services on quartz and synthetic silica samples and expects revenue of between $15,000 to $30,000 per month. The firms will explore the potential to utilise ChemX’s equipment and facilities when the company’s 24tpa pilot plant in the Perth suburb of O’Connor is completed.

Meeka Metals is gearing up for gold mining to begin in March with significant progress made with its processing infrastructure and accommodation village at the company’s Murchison gold project in WA. Its much larger “game-changing” processing plant equipment is on site and expected to dramatically increase its pre-feasibility numbers in the upcoming definitive-feasibility-study due in December.

Empire Energy is now well on its way to being the first to produce gas out of the NT’s biblical scale Beetaloo gas basin after Macquarie Bank put up a $65m funding package for it, avoiding the need

Strickland Metals has nailed a 41m drill hit grading 4 grams per tonne gold in Serbia that was part of a massive 272m intersection going 1.8 g/t gold equivalent. The broader intersection also showed copper, zinc, lead and silver. The new results are from Strickland’s Shanac deposit within its wholly-owned 5.4-million-ounce gold-equivalent Rogozna project in the Balkan country of Serbia.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Petratherm. The critical mineral explorer discovered titanium and heavy minerals in historical South Australian core library samples. InFocus Group Holdings ran hard after nabbing a potential multi-million dollar agreement to develop a digital gaming product, while other movers and shakers this week were Noviqtech and Narryer Metals.

Aurumin non-exec director and businessman Daniel Raihani has moved into the managing director’s chair at the gold and iron ore explorer after the departure of company founder Brad Valiukas. Raihani has been a non-executive director at Aurumin for the past year and is an experienced accountant and businessman with various property and commercial interests.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining is set to hammer further gold targets with its fourth air-core drill program at its Pinjin project in WA’s renowned 30-million ounce Laverton Tectonic zone, one of the state’s biggest gold endowment regions and host to several producing gold mines. The program will target the company’s prospective Kirgella East gold prospect with a planned 4000m maiden drill campaign.

Reach Resources has intercepted thick rare earth hits at its 100 per cent owned Wabli Creek project in WA’s Gascoyne region, scoring a whopping 109m running 1109 parts per million total rare earth oxides. Initial assays from 18 holes drilled at the company’s Pelops target returned significant intersections of rare earths from surface, with multiple holes ending in mineralisation.

Larvotto Resources latest reverse-circulation drill campaign at its Hillgrove project has kept the gold-antimony party going with further big high-grade hits rolling off the drill bit at the company’s Clarks Gully deposit, some 23km east of Armidale in northern NSW. Larvotto also struck visible gold in diamond core drilling at its Bakers Creek prospect within the Hillgrove project area.

Novo Resources has bolstered its bank balance with the sale of its remaining 20 per cent interest in the Quartz Hill joint-venture project, along with the company’s gold and silver rights, for $850,000. Novo is now laser-focused on developing its prospective gold and base metal projects in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

King River Resources has discovered two new zones exhibiting high-grade gold from its phase-one, 28-hole reverse-circulation drill program at the company’s Kurundi project in Australia’s top-end. A phase-two campaign is already underway to further interrogate the new finds, with one zone sitting in the Kurundi Main Central target area and the other about 250m to the south.

Allup Silica has undertaken further analysis on its 2023 air-core drill samples and identified promising rare earths, uranium and graphite mineralisation at its Pink Bark project near Esperance in WA’s Albany Fraser region. The campaign originally identified a significant kaolin clay deposit that the company believes may contain a resource of between 700,000 and 1.2 million tonnes.

Aurum Resources’ bid for Mako Gold could create a new West African golden-force with $20 million in cash, its own fleet of drill-rigs and a string of well mineralised projects within cooee of each other. And this isn’t the first rodeo for Aurum managing director Caigen Wang who has done it all before in Côte D’Ivoire having built the 3.8m ounce Abujar gold mine on the same structural trend.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Green Critical Minerals. The critical mineral explorer picked up some new groundbreaking graphite technology that can produce high-thermal conductivity material. Li-S Energy ran hard after revealing improvements to its lithium-sulfur battery tech, while other movers and shakers this week were Asian Battery Metals and Red Mountain Mining.

Infinity Lithium non-exec chairman Adrian Byass will step up into the roles of executive chairman and interim CEO as the company shifts its operational focus to Spain for its San José lithium project. Infinity has been pushing hard to obtain the relevant project approvals and is working with the Mines Department to establish a public consultation period, hoping to work with stakeholders and finalise the approval process.

Red Metal has been knocked over by punters in the rush for shares after its latest share purchase plan received applications totalling $6.6 million blowing an initial target of $2 million out of the water. The company’s exploration plans at its Sybella rare earths project in Queensland and drill programs at its other prospective targets are now fully-funded for the next year.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Peak Minerals. The junior miner acquired a large swathe of ground prospective for uranium-rutile in the West African nation of Cameroon. Yandal Resources also ran hard after a series of impressive gold-drilling hits, while other movers and shakers this week were Argent Minerals and TZ Limited.

Horizon Minerals is set to take over Poseidon Nickel and its mothballed mining plant with a $30m all-scrip deal that will give Horizon a neat opportunity to commercialise its myriad of gold deposits scattered around Kalgoorlie. Horizon is offering 0.1156 of its shares for each Poseidon share and aims to raise a minimum of $14 million via a two-tranche placement at 4.5c per share to bolster its balance sheet.

Suvo Strategic Minerals’ subsidiary, Climate Tech Cement, has inked a 50:50 joint-venture (JV) agreement with respected pre-cast concrete manufacturer PERMAcast to commercialise intellectual property for a low-carbon “geopolymer” cement product made from processed mining waste. The aim is to introduce low-carbon concrete projects and products to market. PERMAcast has supplied concrete products for many notable WA developments.